That seems to be the concencis Bob in that the mast spins on the pin and not the plate. Mine is working well in spinning on the bottom plate that the pin is welded too, but as Tom says somewhere, it would have more friction than the end of the pin and a plug spacer would be better than a washer spacer. The only reason I went a washer spacer is that it's easier to remove if it isn't right.

How are you going Aussie ? All fixed up yet ? With the measurements you gave being different again to everyone elses, it made me wonder if at the factory , after the hull is formed and mast receiver assembled, if the mast drum is glued to the mast to suit the hull dimensions. ( ie: that mast is setup for that hull ). I spose it would depend on what tolerances they could get with forming the hull.

That seems to be the concencis Bob in that the mast spins on the pin and not the plate. Mine is working well in spinning on the bottom plate that the pin is welded too, but as Tom says somewhere, it would have more friction than the end of the pin and a plug spacer would be better than a washer spacer. The only reason I went a washer spacer is that it's easier to remove if it isn't right.

How are you going Aussie ? All fixed up yet ? With the measurements you gave being different again to everyone elses, it made me wonder if at the factory , after the hull is formed and mast receiver assembled, if the mast drum is glued to the mast to suit the hull dimensions. ( ie: that mast is setup for that hull ). I spose it would depend on what tolerances they could get with forming the hull.

Just a thought.

Slaughter - I haven't taken it in to the dealer yet - hopefully in the next couple of days.

I am no engineer (I know some of you are) but at the risk of being wrong, I have to say that after taking the measurements the mast clearly spins on the pin and is not supposed to bottom out meaning that it should not be touching the mast plate (hence Fusioneng's observation of no contact marks on his mast plate). Therefore having thought about it some more I would be reluctant to place a spacer either in the mast bore hole on top of the pin or on top of the mast plate as both of these solutions will reduce the length of the pin supporting the mast inside the mast bore hole. My mast is engineered to have 18 mm of pin inside the mast bore with a 4 mm clearance between the bottom of the mast and the mast plate and if I put a 5mm spacer on top of the pin (to raise the mast the required 5mm) I reduce the support length by almost 30%. To use a spacer on top of the mast plate to raise the mast I would need a 9mm spacer (5mm plus the clearance of 4mm) which would reduce the pin length inside the mast bore by the same amount. My guess is that the pin and the hole are designed to be the length they are for a good reason and probably provide lateral support to the mast as well us vertical support (otherwise why would the hole be 18 mm - it only needs a very small pin to provide vertical support and spin). I think the pin length is also designed to stop the mast from slipping off the pin when under side pressure in strong winds.The Hobie engineer's suggestion of packing spacers underneath the pin/mast plate (which NOHUHU also suggested on August 10th 2012) makes sense to me in that it would maintain the the pin length inside the mast bore hole and the clearance between the mast and the mast plate while successfully raising both the mast and the plate up so that the mast collar clears the roller bearing plate.

This problem, which is probably a wider one than perhaps NOHUHU realized in his post of August 10th also strongly suggests that Bob (Fusioneng) is spot on and so was Tom Kirkman in his comment on April 25th that the mast collars may be inaccurately glued on to the mast in the factory and the Hobie Quality Assurance is not detecting the error. NOHUHU discovered that adjusting the v-brace effectively lifted the whole mast receiver tube up/down "fixing" the problem but Tom confirmed for us that is not what the v-brace is there to do. We may in fact be seeing two unrelated issues here. We could be seeing some kayaks with a mast collar gluing error and yet others may have incorrectly tensioned v-braces when leaving the factory both resulting in the mast collar rubbing on the mast bearing plate. End users are not complaining because they, like me and the Hobie dealers, do not even realize that the mast collar should not be touching the mast bearing plate and assume that as it works ok everything is just fine.

Tom:I'm on my third TI now, and all three had the exact same issue with the loose mast collars. If you bump it at all when walking (it doesn't take much) the collar slides up and down. None have ever rotated, and they are easily bumped back. If I had that problem on 3 out of 3 masts, (all came from the factory that way) it's likely others just might have the same issue, that's the only reason I mentioned it. A quick measurement will confirm if it has slipped, and hopefully save someone all the work of trying to adjust all the wrong things. Now whenever I get a new TI one of the first things I do is confirm and mark the correct position for the mast collar, so I can always bump it back to the correct position.

That was my only point.

Bob

I finally got my TI and mast down to my Hobie dealer yesterday. The owner personally helped me. Showed him what was happening and went through all the conversations, measurements Hobie engineers feedback to his staff and the proposed solution (detailed my previous msg) He didn't like that solution as he suspected the mast was the problem. So he did some quick measurements with a new TI mast- we swapped the masts - and my problem disappeared - isolating the problem to the mast. He said the glue up on my mast collar was incorrect and took the bottom half of my mast back to return to Hobie for replacement. He gave me a correct bottom mast section from stock to keep me sailing (I'm still under warranty). Thanks to all for all the great suggestions - in the end this took 15 minutes for the dealer to resolve for me and speaks very highly of the Hobie dealer (Fastlane Sailing) !

That's great Aussie that you have it all sorted. I think we all came to the same conclusion that the drum was located wrong on the mast. But a design change from V1 to V2 threw a spanner in the works so that nobody really knows what the correct dimensions are suppose to be. I find it a bit funny that us users and the dealers have been left in the dark on this issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I cannot see anywhere where Hobie have admitted that there is even a problem. Very uncharacteristic ?? After pages and pages of discussions, we have all come up with different solutions to resolving the issue but we also knew that none of these solutions were ideal. And as you also now know, the only real solution is to have the drum glued to the mast in the correct location in the first place.

Could you please do me a favour Aussie, and go back to my 2nd photo page 7 and tell me, with your new mast, what dimension do you now get from your mast drum to end ?

Okay, although we seem to be approaching concensus on the cause of the problem, here is yet another possible permutation.

The base of my mast is showing considerable signs of wear, like it has been rubbing on the base plate... while I have considered lodging something inside the hole to lift the mast fractionally so it spins on the pin, I already have a bit too much clearance between the bottom of the furling drum and the top bearing plate, allowing the furling line to almost get trapped in the gap.

Normal wear should be expected and doesn't really fall under defect or poor design. It just happens if you use the boat enough.

So when the problem is due to normal wear, the question is, what to do about it.

Perhaps drop a very thin nylon washer over the pin in the mast support cup. These are very inexpensive and will easily restore the proper clearances. Although a good amount of wear will have to have taken place before such a thing will work. Install it too soon and you may not be able to lock your drum in place on the upper support assembly.

But, at some point it's an effective fix and certainly less expensive and less troublesome than re-fitting the drum or replacing the lower section of a mast.

He gave me a correct bottom mast section from stock to keep me sailing (I'm still under warranty). Thanks to all for all the great suggestions - in the end this took 15 minutes for the dealer to resolve for me and speaks very highly of the Hobie dealer (Fastlane Sailing) !

My mast now spins like a top !

Glad you got it fixed Aussie and thanks for reporting the solution to this problem. It's interesting that you were given the lower section of the mast, as a two piece mast is usually supplied as a pair and not separated like that. Are Hobie going to return your lower section to you when it's repaired?

A question for Hobie in regard to Tony's problem:Is minor tweaking of the V-Brace not recommended at all for V2 X-Bars?

Tom, I am not really concerned about the wear rate, considering how much my TI is used (I had to replace the sail telltales as they were threadbare), but if the mast is actually supposed to be supported on the pin, adding a washer around the pin will surely only further reduce any possibility of the mast resting on thed pin, nd in addition, will further open up the gap beneath the furling drum.

It would seem to me that I need to add something inside the hole at the base of the mast, so the load is carried directly by the pin, and there is then some clearance between the bottom of the mast and the base plate to which the pin is attached.

Stringy, I think it is only possible to make very minor changes to the clernce by adjusting the turnbuckles on a V2 set-up, zlthough in my case it might help to reduce the gap under thd furling drum (which seems to be the opposite to the problems many seem to be experiencing).

Okay, although we seem to be approaching concensus on the cause of the problem, here is yet another possible permutation.

The base of my mast is showing considerable signs of wear, like it has been rubbing on the base plate... while I have considered lodging something inside the hole to lift the mast fractionally so it spins on the pin, I already have a bit too much clearance between the bottom of the furling drum and the top bearing plate, allowing the furling line to almost get trapped in the gap.

Any suggestions?

Tony on my mast the pin is 22 mm and the mast hole is 18mm leaving a 4mm clearance from the plate. If you are getting sand/debri accumulating in the bottom it could act like a grinding paste on the bottom of the mast but I'm sure you would have noticed that. Are you saying that your mast contacts the base plate rather than sitting on the pin?

Slaughter - I will make that measurement soon and let you know - I don't think Hobie are acknowledging it as a problem - my dealer initially said he didn't think I had a problem until I insisted that the mast should be spinning on the pin and not grinding on the bearing plate. Once he compared it to a new one he could see the difference. He then said he had seen a few masts with the incorrect positioning of the furling drum and they had been returned to Hobie for replacement. My guess is that many owners who have this issue don't realize that the mast is not supposed to sit on the bearing plate and think the wear and tear is normal. Therefore they don't complain to Hobie and so it doesn't register as a significant issue.

Stringy - No I am keeping the new bottom mast section (unless it gives me a problem) It fitted on my top half nice and snugly. Am I likely to experience a problem with a newer bottom half?

Yes, you'll note earlier than I mentioned that having something in the mast support hole is the place for such a shim, but if the mast eventually wears to a large degree you would be able to at least maintain proper clearance with a nylon washer over the support base pin.

If you aren't averse to a little bit more work, you could always glue in a smaller nylon washer or plug into the mast support hole. This would indeed be a better fix, but you'd want to make sure to test fit first. Too much and the mast won't lock in on the support base.

That's great Aussie that you have it all sorted. ...................Could you please do me a favour Aussie, and go back to my 2nd photo page 7 and tell me, with your new mast, what dimension do you now get from your mast drum to end ?

Slaughter I took the measurement today of the new mast and it is 285 mm (and the # 1 measurement is 293mm) which is a big difference to your measurements so not sure that's of any help to you Slaughter - the TI and AI are obviously quite different. Here's the weird thing though - that's the SAME measurement I got on my old mast. So I measured the hole in the bottom of the mast and it is 17mm - only 1mm different to the old one. Overall it gives me about 2-3mm clearance BUT my mast spins freely now and that's all that matters so I think I am done with measurements and will go sailing

I went out on the weekend and took some friends out and when they saw how fast my sail furled up they were convinced I had an electric motor on it